"And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:19 >>

Benson finished the day 3-1, bringing home silver in Gi and gold in NoGi. 🥈🥇 But the biggest win from this tournament wasn’t either medal. Benson made it to the Gi finals against a very tough and experienced competitor. He lost the match by armbar and had to accept that silver was his result. Normally, that’s where the story ends. Except Benson knew there was a chance he would see the same kid again in the NoGi finals. There was about a 4.5-hour break between those matches. And during that time, doubt started creeping in. Benson had already experienced losing to him once that day, and slowly his thoughts started convincing him that the next match might have the same outcome. That became our focus. Wylie Dean and I challenged every negative thought that came out. We reminded Benson that the first match was finished. The first result didn’t get to decide the second one. Instead of spending 4.5 hours replaying the loss, we talked about what he learned from it. What could he change? What did he see? What would he do differently if God gave him another opportunity? Then the brackets lined up. Same opponent. NoGi finals. This time, Benson got the win. That moment meant more to me than the gold medal. He went from losing to the same competitor, sitting with that loss for hours, fighting through his own doubt, and then stepping back onto the mat against him and finding a different result. That’s Jiu-Jitsu. And that’s life. Sometimes the obstacle in front of you doesn’t change. You have to. Above everything, praise the Lord. We’re thankful when Benson wins, and we’re thankful when he loses. His will is always greater than the result we want. Our responsibility is to trust Him, keep working, and look for the lesson He’s revealing through every experience. Yesterday, God gave Benson an opportunity to learn that one loss doesn’t determine what happens next. “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable.” — Philippians 4:8 NLT

One of the biggest blessings in our boys’ BJJ journey over the last 18 months has been finding Coach Nick and the Prism family. Both Benson and Wylie have leveled up significantly in a relatively short amount of time, but one of the things Stephanie and I appreciate most isn’t just the improvement we see on tournament day. It’s how intentional Coach Nick is about developing each kid individually. Benson and Wylie are brothers. They’ve trained together for years. They’re in the same room, learning many of the same techniques and getting a lot of the same instruction. But they are completely different grapplers. Benson naturally gravitates toward his guard. We’ve spent a lot of time building his game around his Step One, establishing his grips, getting into his positions and then developing answers for the different reactions opponents give him. His game has become a decision tree. The more situations he experiences, the more branches we can add. Wylie is different. He’s naturally bigger and stronger, has always been comfortable playing on top, and sees positions differently than Benson does. What works naturally for one of them doesn’t necessarily make sense for the other. Coach Nick recognizes that. He doesn’t look at his students and try to create 20 copies of the same grappler. He pays attention. He learns their tendencies. He sees what positions they naturally gravitate toward. He identifies their strengths, finds the holes in their games, and then starts helping them build something that belongs to them. That takes a different level of investment from a coach. It’s easy to teach a technique to an entire room. It’s much harder to understand each individual student well enough to know what they need next. And what has impressed us even more is that this isn’t something Coach Nick only does for Benson and Wylie. We see him doing it with his other students too. This video of Coach Nick and Benson sparring is a small glimpse of that process. When we post tournament clips, everyone gets to see the finished product. They see the sweep, submission, pass, back take or medal.